My Journey Just Began and So Far It Has Been a Nightmare - Jacksonville, FL

I don't mean to discourage anyone about this...

27 Jul 2016

7 days post

I don't mean to discourage anyone about this surgery, I have heard about so many great stories. My goal was to be part of that group but it has been 8 days since my surgery and I had to come back to the hospital and I can't leave.
I had the Sleeve gastrectomy plus a hiatal hernia repair, when I came out of surgery I was taken to the XRAY machine to check for leaks, at that moment I was in terrible pain, I was crying cause I couldn't handle the pain, I couldn't believe the anesthesia had worn out that fast. However, knowing that people react differently to it, I thought my surgeon would give me pain killers right away... not so much, turns out my surgeon is known for being very stingy with pain killers... it took them 5 hours to finally get him to give me morfine and that didn't take care of the whole thing. Anyway, I started taking oral pain killers but after swallowing the pain was excruciating again and I would immediately want to throw up. Everybody was convinced that my pain was gas pain due to the CO2 that they use to inflate your stomach, and asked me to walk to help release the pain... well, the pain killers covered everything and I was able to drink so they sent me home.
Taking crushed pills at home also caused excruciating pain, 3 days later I couldn't drink much, I was getting dehydrated, called doctor, doctor did a Barium test and realized I had developed an edema, sent me to the ER 5 days after my surgery. Today is 07/27/2016 and I am still here getting an IV, steroids and nothing by mouth... this sucks!!!! The pain in still there, seems like saliva gets stuck in the edema area and that causes pain... nothing has improved... I miss my kids... this is not truly going as planned. And that makes me sad.

He has good reviews, apparently I am his 1st patient with complications on Sleeve gastrectomy with hiatal hernia repair. He seems thorough, the people at the hospital have called him a perfectionist and that he likes to cover all his bases.